Wednesday, June 10, 2015

June 10 - 12 Historic Events Commemorated

June
10 - June 12 Historic Events Commemorated - Bill Kelly

June
10th and June 12 don't ring many bells as special dates to remember,
or days that will live in infamy, but a few people think them worth
commemorating at the places where some significant events took place
- JFK's "Peace Speech" at American University and Mary's
Cafe in Maple Shade, New Jersey, where MLK was radicalized to make
civil rights the focus of his ministry.

It
was June 10th 1963 when JFK delivered one of the most I'm portent
speeches at the American University graduation commencement ceremony,
an outdoor affair with the stage set up at the far west end of the
football field, where an historic marker is located today.

JFK
chose the time and place to make a major foreign policy speech - "A
Strategy of Peace" that would be intensely studied by the
Soviets and practically ignored by most Americans for many
years. Even the audience seemed unmoved and on the short drive
back to the White House JFK asked one of his aides - "Do you
think they got it?"

The
historical marker is where we started meeting at noon every June 10
for many years, beginning around 1992 in response to a request from
the Kennedy family to remember JFK for his administration and
policies rather than his death, though November 22, 1963 will be
forever engraved on his tombstone and that will be the day most
people remember him.

The
granite historical marker is engraved with parts of the speech, but
to get the full effect you need to read the whole thing or key
excerpts that we would read at each little memorial ceremony every
June 10.

JFK:
"I have, therefore, chosen this time and place to discuss a
topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely
perceived. And that is the most important topic on earth: peace. What
kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a
Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not
the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking
about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth
living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to
hope, and build a better life for their children – not merely peace
for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in
our time but peace in all time."

The
reference to a "Pax Americana" was in response to a speech
given by Air Force General Curtis LeMay who was a bitter Kennedy foe
and wanted to enforce a Pax Americana on the world.

Commemorating
the event started out as one of the events sponsored by the Committee
for an Open Archive - a non-profit lobby group co-founded by myself
and my old college mate John Judge.

The
first one was the best as it featured John Newman, who spoke in a
class room for awhile before we went over to the monument.
After taking turns reading parts of the speech and expressing why
it's still important in our times, we adjourned for lunch nearby and
continued the cultured conversations. Since school now gets out a few
weeks earlier, some of us stayed in dorm rooms at the University.

Then
while visiting Dallas Soviet Primier Gorbachev stopped by Dealey
Plaza, picked up a copy of Robert Groden's book and then took a tour
of the Sixth Floor Museum, where he signed the guest register with a
notation referencing the June 10th speech as being an important
turning point in the Cold War detente.

Gorbacheve
wrote:

“I’ve
long been interested in the life of John F. Kennedy. He was certainly
a great president of the United States. For us who live in a
complicated time of transition of great importance is the vision of
John F. Kennedy, his thoughts about peace and about how to live in
the world. President Kennedy’s remarks on June 10,
1963at AmericanUniversityare
of even greater importance today than then. Thirty five years ago he
already saw what we have come to understand only now. The best
memory of this man would be to understand his deeds and thoughts and
to translate them in policies and more importance in the life of
nations. He looked far ahead and he wanted to change a great deal.
Perhaps it is this that is the key to the mystery of the death of
President John Kennedy.”

Signed The
President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev - October 12,
1998

Some
writers and historians even say that the speech was one of the
reasons JFK was killed.

John
Judge at Historic Marker at American University

American
University is also where John Judge and Col. Fletcher Prouty were
featured on a Diane Reame PBS radio talk show that got us a lot of
national attention, and was where Judge was a member of a panel of
speakers at a small conference on the subject of the movie JFK and
movies and politics that was carried nationally by CSPAN.

While
I haven't been there on June 10 in a couple of years, others have
continued the tradition, including North Carolina documentary
film maker Randy Benson, who has recorded some of the proceedings
that are included in his film on researchers "The Searchers."

And
I am sure there will be some people who will stop by the historic
marker at American University today and into the futur

MLK at Mary's Cafe

Two
days later - June 12 - and thirteen years earlier - in 1950, divinity
student Michael King, Jr. - before he became known as Martin, was
driving around with a fellow student and their dates - when they
decided to stop for a drink at a road side cafe - Mary's Place -
on the clover leaf exit ramp off Rr. 73 and Camden Road in quiet,
residential neighborhood of Maple Shade, New Jersey.

The
bartender and proprietor Ernest Nichols, a tough German immigrant,
refused to serve them, and when they protested he used profanity and
fired a gun in the air.

King
and company left but went to the police and filed a formal complaint
and had Nichols arrested.

On
the complaint King and his friend listed their address as 753 Walnut
St., Camden, N.J., while the girls with them listed a West
Philadelphia address.

Although
King obtained the assistance of the Camden NAACP, Nichols got a local
attorney who filed a legal brief for Nichols, claiming it wasn't a
matter of civil rights or color, but it was after hours when liquor
couldn't be sold.

The
case was officially dismissed when four other customers who were
called as witnesses - one report says one was a black man and three
white Philadelphia college students either failed to appear or
refused to testify.

Then
all was forgotten until after Michael King became Martin Luther King
- icon of the civil rights movement that was changing America and its
traditional ways of doing things. When King was called to testify
before Congress, a Senator asked him why he made civil rights the
major theme of his ministry and King referred to the incident at
Mary's Cafe.

Nichols'
lawyer later wrote an article about it for the Burlington County
Times reflecting on the significance of the incident not only King's
life but that of our nation.

When
the lawyer died his obituary mentioned the incident at Mary's Place
and the attorney's role in it, which caught my attention because I
knew of no biography of King that even mentions it, though I have
since learned of one.

One
day I drove to the location and found Mary's Place still there,
though closed. A sign reported the new owners - the NJ Dept. of
lTransportation had plans to demolish it. I took some and looked
inside - the bar stools and chairs were upside down and it looked
like it had been operating recently as the Morristown Pub.

I
then wrote a blog post about it at my White Deer Cafe blog, which got
two responses - one from a Philadelphia lawyer - David Larson,
who may have contacted the NJ DOT in an attempt to preserve the
building, but they didn't want to hear about it, and the other from
Patrick Duff, who first learned of the incident in an archived
article "The Bar that Started a Crusade."

But
by the time Duff learned about it the building had been demolished,
though Duff has since picked up the ball and has been running with
it. Duff obtained a copy of the official complaint from Maple
Shade officials that has King's Camden address on it and he paved the
way for an historic marker to be placed at the Mary's Place Cafe
site, as well as the assistance of a local architectural firm to
redesign the area with park benches.

Duff
also found news clips that indicate Nichols applied for a liquor
license after the incident occurred, indicating he may have been
selling liquor illegally without a license when King was there, and
hefound
that Nichols went on to own another bar - Ernie's in Riverside.

A
Philadelphia Tribune news account of the incident reported that one
of the women with King was a Philadelphia police officer, and the
other was a social worker.

After
meeting with a few reporters and bloggers at the Mary's Place Cafe
site on MLK Day in January 2015, Duff shared the official complaint
report with the Camden address, - 753 Walnut Street, which I pumped
into my phone's GPS map and headed for that location, deep in the
rubble of the South Camden ghetto.

There
I found the house still standing, part of a side by side duplex that
was boarded up, littered with junk and covered with graffiti,
but still solid and restorable.

Duff
located the owner and she acknowledged King lived there for about two
years when he was a divinity students and she clearly recalled
King. She also agreed to allow the house to be restored as a
museum and the architects firm agreed to do the necessary design work
to have it restored to what it looked like in 1950 when King was
there.

But
there are still many questions, including what became of the women
who accompanied King and are they still alive to give a first hand
report of what actually occurred?

There's
also the question of who was Mary? And what became of her?

And
how did all of this escape the attention of the historians and
biographers who have detailed King's life and death so thoroughly?

We
hear all about MLK in Birmingham, Selma and Memphis but there's
nothing in the history books or movies about MLK in Camden or at
Mary's Cafe (with one exception), where he was radicalized and
inspired to champion civil rights as his cause.

Patrick
Duff is planing on being at the site of Mary's Cafe at 12:30 pm this
Friday, June 12, hold a moment of silence and then hold a press
conference to give an update and make some important announcements.